Tue, Jan 05, 2010 | 22:21 GMT
Cinemaware founder: Movie tie-ins are “generally a piece of crap”
Games. Movies. Games and movies. Cinemaware founder Bob Jacob reckons games of movies are pretty much doomed to failure.
“There are inherent problems” with the whole process of creating games based on films, the veteran developer told Gamasutra, adding that the “reality is that the time it takes a film to [hit theaters after being green-lit] is never more than a year. What kind of a game can you do in a year? Generally a piece of crap.”
This basic problem is the reason why so many “bad games have been made on film licenses,” Jacob said.
Jacob went on to say that the movie style adopted by many of today’s biggest games was an inevitability.
“If you look at some of the best-selling games right now — if you look at Uncharted 2, the recent Call of Duty games — they are extremely cinematic games,” he said.
“Twenty-three years ago I knew that was going to happen. There was no question; that’s the way it had to go. We had to make the games more movie-like.”
10 
Posted in: Development, Movies
Tags: Bob Jacob, crap
10 comments
#1
Gekidami
05/01/10, 10:15 pm
Picture isnt very suiting seeing as he’s talking about games of movies and not the other way round (as it was for Mario).
#2
Patrick Garratt
05/01/10, 10:17 pm
That’s completely true.
#3
Patrick Garratt
05/01/10, 10:18 pm
Can you think of a shit game based on a film, please?
#4
Gekidami
05/01/10, 10:22 pm
Apart from the old Star Wars games on SNES… All of them. Though for sheer historical purposes you could go with a picture from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial on Atari 2600.
EDIT: My mind had been read.
#5
Patrick Garratt
05/01/10, 10:27 pm
Steph thought that up. I never played it. Something about a hole in the desert?
#6
Gekidami
05/01/10, 10:30 pm
Millions of unsold copies of the game got buried. Thats what i meant by “sheer historical purposes”
.
#7
Patrick Garratt
05/01/10, 10:34 pm
I’d love to believe that’s true. I’m going to play it, just to see how bad it is
#8
Digital Forge
06/01/10, 12:37 am
We actually covered the ET game at Uni and spent a good few hours talking about how rubbish the game was. Was basically the perfect example of how not to develop a game.
Generic link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial
#9
The_Deleted
06/01/10, 7:35 am
The Wolverine game was excellent.
Iron Man…not so much.
#10
mojo
06/01/10, 11:57 am
For teh ET game:
I heard multiple stories, that they produced more copys of the game then ataris existed at the time of release. They argued with “well, there will be future customers who dont have a atari right now. They also will need/buy the game”
Maybe the most epic fail in videogaming history imo